Out into the Cosmic Space that is the Blog-o-sphere

Okay, so I've been thinking. This is dangerous. I am thinking about life. I've begun to believe that everyone has CRAP that they deal with. I like to believe that we aren't alone in our struggles but that life is a struggle for all and the key to living well is learning to struggle gracefully.

You know when you look at a friend and all the good that they have in their life--you look at them and they seem like they have it all together. You stop and wonder, "Surely they must struggle with something... there must be something that makes them crazy and keeps them pleading to God for help. They must look around and wish something about their life came easier for them."

Does anyone else do that when you look at a person's life from a distance? 

I feel like things are great and Scott and I have been amazingly blessed but I still think we've really gone through - and are still going through - a lot. Scott said, tonight, that there are seasons and I just thought this has been a long season for us.

We've learned a lot the past two years with Scott's business slowing way down and barely making a profit. We've learned what really matters - perspective - but still, even with a pitiful salary, I have somehow been able to stay home with Kate, in a house, of our own (well, someday it will be ours). This has been a miracle for us that I have been able to keep doing what I love and not have my time divided between working outside the home and mothering.

We've learned a lot the past three and half years wanting to have another child and having that blessing denied us. I'm still so confused over this. I'm at the point where if we do get good news, I will be waiting for it to be ripped out from under us because I'm so used to having a lack there. And I also don't know what I will do if we really end up with an only child. That is the weirdest thing to me. I can't even see myself, old, just me and Scott, with one child coming to visit us for Thanksgiving. But what have I learned? I think I'm still working on this one. For sure, I am grateful for that one child who amazes me daily - that one child who has taught me to love beyond anything I could have imagined - that one child who successfully changed me forever. But still, with all that, I think this one hard thing still has some left to teach me.

You know how people put those buttons on their blogs. Like my "I'm a Mormon" button or "I Read NieNie" or whatever, I wish we all put a button on our blogs that said what we were going through right then like (these are just examples and not real for me): "My family isn't speaking to me" or "Now that the kids are grown, I can't stand my marriage" or "My Mom has Stage 4 Cancer" or "We live with our parents and can't afford a house of our own" or "I can't find Mr. Right" or "My son has autism" or any number of other things. I wish we could just put it out there so that everyone would know what we were going through and no one would have the need to look at our life and wish for it.

Scott and I have so much to be grateful for and I know I wouldn't want it any other way because the way life has gone is the reason I've learned what I have. But still, I look at most of the friends Scott and I hung around when he and I were dating and they all have four kids, mucho successful businesses, big-new-perfectly decorated houses, clear skin, lovely bodies (not that I'm complaining about my body, it's okay, but they've all had 4 kids remember...I mean 4 kids and still looking way hotter than I ever have), they say the right things, they appear happy and yada, yada, yada.

I try to remind myself. "It's okay, Julie, they've got something too." Not that I wish people to have misfortune but that life is hard for everyone in some way, at least that is my theory. Am I wrong? Enlighten me people...